“Lost in the Border”: Transforming U.S.-Mexican Borders in the Name of Security

The U.S.-Mexican border is increasingly being transformed into a highly securitized zone in which thousands of crossers die every year and are “lost in the borders”. While post-national political and economic ecologies – such as the maquila-based flows of capital and goods or the cross-border webs of informal income generating activities – may to some degree define the U.S.-Mexican border region, the border itself still figures in a traditional inside/outside sense (Matthew Coleman) through which most Mexican immigrants crossing are banished to the most remote regions of the border by private paramilitaries and state policies that simultaneously allure/reject them and condemn their illegal entry. These paradoxical developments of a “gated globalism” are not only challenging methodological nationalism from a transnational perspective but also ask for a rethinking of the local/regional/national/global. In what ways are political and cultural demarcations shifting due to the increasing economy/security nexus at the border? Are there apparent continuities or shifts in the rhetoric of fear and practices at the border, especially since the mid-20th century when national security was explicitly linked to border control? Furthermore, what meaning does this have for the historiography of the U.S-Mexican border?